The longer I live, the more I am certain that the difference between great and weak men is simply an invincible determination. -Sir Thomas Buxton
The mental toughness needed to live a successful life with PMA requires us to be strong minded. Strong mindedness calls for unwavering belief in our mission, our team and ourselves. This allows us to accept and embrace the challenges that life throws at us with a great sense of purpose. The strong minded person rejects the negativity and lack of accountability that makes up the loser’s mentality. Rather, dogged determination is the calling card of those of us that are strong minded. Dogged determination is doing whatever it takes to accomplish the task or achieve the goal. The determined mind is intolerant of excuses, has great self discipline, and moves forward toward the goal in all circumstances.
Too many people find reasons to fail, winners find the reason to succeed. It is easy to find reasons to fail. Excuses are everywhere. Many of these excuses are even legitimate, but there are no results where there are excuses. We must be intolerant of excuses and not allow for them in our lives.
When failure or adversity strikes, we can’t waste our time defending our actions or blaming others. Doing these things are the excuse making measures of the loser’s mentality. We must accept it, take accountability for it, learn from it and move on in a productive manner. Our reaction in trying and prosperous times is the very essence of our need for PMA. How we think and act in these times will determine our long term success. It is that simple. We must be strong minded and fight past and through the temptation to as the Focus 3 group says, “blame, complain and defend (BCD).” We must have PMA and get rid of the excuses. It is imperative to face things head on, see them for what they are and use them to move forward. Adversity is often the greatest teacher that we have in life if we use it to better ourselves. Making excuses eliminates all the positive results that we can get from tough times.
It takes great self-discipline to be a strong minded person by eliminating excuses in life and deciding to always be in forward motion. Self-discipline is doing what we need to do, when we need to do it, regardless of whether or not we want to do it. We do this in order to get what we truly want in the long run. In our football program we call it “The Great Exchange,” a term we took from the book Season of Life by Jeffrey Marx. Most success comes down to exhibiting self-discipline in our thoughts and actions. We may have to choose to do mundane and tedious tasks in the short term to get us where we want to be in the long run. It takes self-discipline to do this and make the right choices. All athletes would skip practice if they knew the results they strive for could still be accomplished by doing so. But, that does not happen in the real world. We have to “Pay the Price” to be successful. We have to win the battle of the “Great Exchange” and keep our eyes on the prize.
By eliminating excuses and being self-disciplined, we have the ability to stay focused on the goal and move to that end. The PMA way of thinking and living is about purposeful action. Purposeful action comes only if we are intrinsically motivated and push ourselves. The person that can motivate himself and act displays a tough, strong mindedness that cannot and will not be detoured.
Win with PMA 